The present invention relates to an operation confirmation device for a broadcasting system which transmits video information, audio information, data and graphic information through an antenna or a cable to subscribers who can confirm their own subscription states.
Teletext, high-quality television broadcasting, still image broadcasting, and digital multichannel broadcasting systems have been developed in recent years. Along with increased sophistication and complexity of these broadcasting system techniques, various TV programs have been developed.
A pay program (e.g., a television program) is one of these programs. Pay programs can be received by subscribers who have contracted with program offerers. Since the subscribers pay program fees to the program offerers, pay program systems must prevent illegal reception by nonsubscribers. For this purpose, each pay program is scrambled and is transmitted from the broadcasting station to the subscribers' terminals. The scrambled program is then descrambled by each subscriber's terminal.
When a person wishes to make a contract for pay programs with a program offerer, he calls the broadcasting station and requests a desired pay program. Upon contract, the program offerer registers a subscriber's ID (identification) code and a key signal for descrambling the scrambled program in a memory. The key signal is transmitted together with the pay program. The key signal is then received by the subscriber's terminal, and the scrambled program is descrambled by the key signal. Therefore, the subscriber can watch and listen to the desired subscribed program.
When the subscriber cannot watch and listen to his desired program, he might think that his subscriber's terminal is out of order or the station has erroneously sent another program to a subscriber who has not subscribed. Such a circumstance occasionally causes a misunderstanding as to whether the subscriber has contracted the desired program.